HP To Sell And Support Red Hat Linux 236
Dman33 writes "Redhat Linux seems to be gaining an even stronger share in the server and workstation market as HP is announcing worldwide sales and support of the popular distro. Infoworld has a writeup on the announcement and the press release straight from HP is a good read regarding the initiative."
yeah, but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:yeah, but (Score:2)
Re:yeah, but (Score:2)
I have to keep Linux boxes up to date - and do other stuff too. RPMs are a godsend.
Re:yeah, but (Score:2, Funny)
Re:yeah, but (Score:2, Funny)
Re:yeah, but (Score:2)
Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:2, Interesting)
Big blue supports it, Dell supports it, and now HP is supporting it. More and more, sounds to me like its taking the Microsoft and Unix world by storm.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:3, Insightful)
RedHat ISOS - $0
Charging people for CDs - $ profit
Charging people to install OS - $ profit
Charging for support - $ profit
For everything else, theres Windows.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not (IMHO) a technically good Linux distribution, others are leaner and meaner. But for the corperate environment it's ideal. But I do have concerns about the very short length of the security update subscription provided with Red Hat. Installing apt4rpm provides a way around this in some cases.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:3, Informative)
The subscription may be more than worth it to a business, but the consumer is hardly under any onus to purchase it.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:2)
But since IBM now offers Linux on their "big iron" machines, this will essentially be the sign that Sun Microsystems will take a beating from the high end from IBM mainframes/minicomputers running Linux and from the low end from Dell and several other vendors offering small servers or racks of small servers also running Linux.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:2)
Keep in mind I'm not saying Linux can't compete at that level (a level which Microsoft just does not play in, incidentally). I'm just saying there's still a long way to go.
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:2)
Although, those features are being integrated or ported to Linux anyways.
IOW, the same Veritas software that you would need to glue a Sun "big iron" solution together is moving to Linux anyways.
That's kind of funny actually. People complaining ab
Re:Linux not ready for the big iron? (Score:2)
makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like "pi*sing in the company soup"
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:5, Insightful)
HP will probably ship linux on it's x86 based servers, but for the various HP3000/9000 etc big-iron servers, it'll still be HP-UX. I sincerely doubt that linux will have the punch that HP-UX carries on a bigass HP9000 N-class server.
Eventuall HP-UX and Tru64 will no doubt follow MPE into the lands of obscurity. Although, there are still a ton of MPE users/customers out there (my company being one of them with a few dozen MPE based sites installed).
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2, Informative)
Yup MPE is still *huge* in some places. For example if you do business with a credit union there is a very good chance that they run on a HP 3000 and are working on moving to the HP 9000. And you are right that is not going away for a very long time.
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:3, Informative)
We've committed to supporting our customers for another 5 years beyond HPs cut-off date. Of course, we're just itching to sell them all unix or NT (powered by Stratus) based replacements.
The 3000s just dont break, and for the types of systems we sell on 'em, they'd be perfectly adequate chugging along until the end of time. So luckily HP phases em out for us s
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, if/when Linux is ready it won't be too hard to switch as most of what we run on these machines is pretty standard, they are moving from PA-RISC to Intel Itanium, and support contracts only last a few years. Either way, HP gets our money.
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
Your problem with Linux isn't really that Linux isn't up to the task, it's that you have designed your entire system around a very specific feature set. HP may port many of those features to Linux and then migrate you over, but that doesn't make those features intrinsically usef
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:5, Insightful)
why would any new customers buy in to HP-UX?
Because they're willing to pay a premium for high performance PA-RISC system with loads of processors. Same market as big Sun and IBM machines. Same market that Linux won't eat yet for a couple of years. But you're right - if price is the determining decision in the purchase, Lintel is The Way to Go.
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:3, Insightful)
Too true (though more than a couple of years I'd say). Most people here don't understand enterprise computing (or they mostly keep quiet). It needs saying again, and again. Linux is not ready. This is not flamebait. It will get there in the end with enough support, but it will require hardware vendor support.
I think everyone here (that matters
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
What PA-RISC systems?
The ones they've been making for a while and seem like they'll be providing even this year as the new product based on Itanium 2 Madison chips come on line [if Intel provides them]. [theregister.co.uk]
Given the resounding non-success of the first Itanic chip, HPaq's strategy of not abandoning the PA-RISC architecture until sales of the Itanium 2 machines take off is wise.
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
Nuff said?
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2, Informative)
From a cost justification standpoint it makes no sense to port Tru64 or VMS to IA64, therefore they have brought their supported OS's down to Windows, Linux and HP-UX. HP-UX has already been ported and the other two HP doesn't have to pay for.
Certainly with Linux (and to a lesser extent, Windows) they may contribute to the effort (since they are co-designers of the architecture), but that really amounts to "lessons" learned from the HP-UX port,
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2, Informative)
This is no doubt to make that official.
Re:makes you wonder what they'll do with HP-UX... (Score:2)
I can think of a couple reasons.
It handles high-load much better than Linux.
It handles many processors much better than Linux.
It handles lots of memory much better than Linux.
PA-RISC support is Linux is still kind of iffy.
It has decent ACL and quota support.
The last one can be solved using SGI's addition of XFS to Red Hat Linux, but there aren't that many people out there using it yet.
In short, Linux is useful on the low- and mid-range servers, but HP-UX will still rule the roost on the PA
HP already has a unix though (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I could see them doing it for a number of reasons, mainly because it would be a gateway into the small/medium sized business market.
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux doesnt run (remotely well) on the HP3000/9000 big momma mainframes.
Two different OS's for two different product lines.
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:5, Interesting)
Answer: cheap R&D. HP can leave the development to someone else and focus its efforts on sales. HP is sure to have RedHat's ear when it wants it too. You have to figure that they see the writing on the wall: open source can do what the big boys do and sometimes can do it better. This move helps preserve their hardware sales a la Apple with OSX. Smart. Selling software anymore seems like selling ice to eskimos.
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:2)
Because HP has a big unix and wants a small unix for different customers. As for the support, there's probably a lot of commonality between the two.
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:2)
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:2)
Re:HP already has a unix though (Score:2)
Because nowadays customers want Linux not HP-UX. Now, HP could pretend that this wasn't the case, but that wouldn't improve sales of HP-UX, it would just guarantee that they missed out on a piece of the Linux pie. This is the same reason that Sun will also sell you Linux devices. Sun knows that it's better to sell you their Linux server than have you go buy from a competitor.
I'm glad to see this (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious money (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats freaking huge
Re:Serious money (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Serious money (Score:2)
Thats freaking huge
The problem is when HP has been asked point blank to break down the sales figures they refused.
Without that data we don't know how well Linux is selling or what products or services they're gaining the revenue from. Is is consultants putting on sales pitches and getting their hourly rate? Is it workstations
What about laptops? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just want a good quality Linux laptop with firewire, a built-in CDR, lots of RAM, and a power-efficient CPU. I don't want to pay the Windows tax and I don't want an expensive, high speed CPU.
(Why the heck anyone needs a 2 GHz CPU in a laptop is a mystery to me. )
The Lindows "$799" machine would have been perfect but it has no built in CD drive - a fatal deficiency, at least to me.
Re:What about laptops? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to me, I know a few people who do graphic design, and having that kind of horsepower in a laptop is absolutely necessary to them.
A high end laptop and a docking station is also more cost/space effective than a high end desktop and a low end laptop. There are a lot of people who need/want such a portable PC.
The fact that you dont need or want something obviously means nothing. They sell like hotcakes and HP/Dell/Compaq/Sony rake i
Re:What about laptops? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why 2ghz? (Score:2)
It's nice to have!
Re:What about laptops? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have already said this [slashdot.org], but this announcement is not aimed at selling Linux on HP hardware to Joe consumer. They are selling/supporting the Entrerprise versions of RedHat that are aimed at corporate accounts.
Re:What about laptops? (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't mean that corporate laptop users won't want to run Linux. At where I work, we're beginning a rollout to move some of our servers to Linux. Seeing as I'm often on-site at our subsidiaries doing support work, my laptop is my primary PC. However, I'm also going to be one of the primary people supporting Linux, so I'd like to have a "best of both worlds" solution where I have a laptop that runs Linux. I know my boss is trying to get approval for a new laptop for me; it'd make getting me a laptop easier if we could find a manufacturer like Dell or HP/Compaq who sells machines with Red Hat pre-installed.
Just my $.02...
Re:What about laptops? (Score:2)
I run Linux on my laptop, so I know where you are coming from.
I would imagine that RedHat Enterprise WS would run on your laptop OK, but it would take quite a bit more work (read: cost) on HPs part to support it officially. For example, RedHat 8 installs without a hitch on my older Dell, but I installed it on a new HP (Compaq) laptop for a friend and I had to patch the kernel, pass bootparms to the kernel through grub, etc. etc. to get it working.
My guess is that if people start buying Linux workstation
Re:What about laptops? (Score:2)
Maybe it's directed at people who believe that if you don't pay a lot for it, it can't be worth much?
Re:What about laptops? (Score:3, Interesting)
Portable Maya Machine. I currently carry my desktop to my night job so I can have the ponies for doing 3D work that my Sony Vaio 505FX just can't handle (in fact, maya doesn't even run on it). I'd like to grab a laptop because it would greatly simplify the breakdown/portability issues that carrying a mid-tower case and monitor around pose. The Alienware top-end machine would be a godsend (and yes, I plug it in at work.. I realize th
Oh geez... does this mean (Score:2)
What happened to Debian? (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember reading articles about HP picking Debian because it was non commercial and the most stable disto out there.
Re:What happened to Debian? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a huge HP reseller customer don't even get me started on what an evil bitch Carly is.
Re:What happened to Debian? (Score:2)
The current Debian project leader, Bdale Garbee, is also at HP.
Re:What happened to Debian? (Score:2)
Re:What happened to Debian? (Score:2)
Oh, and as far as Linux-vs.-HP-UX: Two entirely different animals, with entirely different market spaces. Only the PA-RISC workstations have any overl
Predictable (Score:3, Insightful)
The real issue is if this will see HP really pushing linux through its sales channels instead of just being another "we recommend Windows 2000" shill.
Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought the enemy of my enemy was my friend or some such. Works GREAT for U.S. foreign policy! ;-)
Why don't IBM, HP, SUN et al just throw together a good entry-level common distro and give it away just to GUT Microsoft ? Are they afraid the DOJ will sue them for collusion?!!
Any money to be made on Linux is all in the support.
Re:Predictable (Score:2)
FWIW HP sponsors Debian.org (Score:5, Funny)
Check out the site sponsor in the lower left corner.
http://www.debian.org/ [debian.org]
Re:FWIW HP sponsors Debian.org (Score:2)
I didn't see a Debian link on the page I got, but at the bottom under 'Sponsored Links' I did see a link for Microsoft and a few for NEC. :-)
Re:FWIW HP sponsors Debian.org (Score:2)
déjà vu (Score:5, Informative)
HP to give 24/7 support for Linux [slashdot.org]
seems not to be the first time...
Re:déjà vu (Score:2)
Free? (Score:2, Interesting)
Worried... what does this do for x86-64 support? (Score:5, Interesting)
HP co-owns the IP for Itanium with Intel, so they have a vested interest in seeing Itanium get lots of support, and AMD x86-64 get none. RedHat has already announced Itanium versions of Advanced Server [redhat.com], but AFAIK, has been silent on the x86-64 front.
SuSE has announced [suse.com] long ago that they'd release x86-64 versions of their distro to coincide with Opteron's release, and they seem to be actively involved [x86-64.org] with that process.
Am I being paranoid here? Or does it look like RH might not support the most cost-effective 64bit platform going? Not all of us have deep pockets for I2.
Don
my smug mug is on smugmug [smugmug.com]
Re:Worried... what does this do for x86-64 support (Score:3, Informative)
If HP chooses only to sell Itanium based rigs, that's their perogitive. If you want a hammer-equiped red hat rig, dont get it from HP.
So just relax. This is just HP making sure the latest IT buzzword is prominent in their marketing literature.
Re:Worried... what does this do for x86-64 support (Score:2, Informative)
Found a press release [redhat.com] about it, afterall, so perhaps RedHat will still be supporting Hammer.
Let's hope so.
Don my smug mug is on smugmug [smugmug.com]
The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux revenue (Score:5, Interesting)
What left me semi-stunned (until I regained my natural skepticism) was the following sentence:
Today's announcement builds on our $2 billion in Linux-based revenue in 2002 and our decade of commitment to the open source and Linux communities," said Peter Blackmore, executive vice president, HP Enterprise Systems Group. (emphasis mine.)
Where the heck does HP get this figure from? (And if VA Linux couldn't make it in the Linux hardware biz, how come HP is making $2 billion revenues just a couple years later?)
"Sniff test" problems here... but I wouldn't mind being enlightened by someone from HP.
--LP
Re:The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux reve (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux reve (Score:5, Interesting)
Where the heck does HP get this figure from?
ISTR HP snagged a huge Linux deal at Dreamworks [com.com] last year. And they also scored a big Linux deal at Disney [theregister.co.uk].
The entertainment industry (especially the movie industry) are ironically moving to Linux big-time. The visual effects industry essentially told all their tools suppliers to port to Linux or else. The tools vendors have complied. Expect to see tasks that were traditionally done on SGI or Sun machines to be done pretty much exclusively on Linux machines from now on.
James Cameron pretty much set the tone for Linux in Hollywood with the renderfarm he used for Titanic [imdb.com]. That farm was built with Digital Alpha processors, but instead of buying DEC Unix (or Tru64 or whatever it was called then), his effects guys put Linux on the machines and saved a couple of hundred grand.
I find it endlessly amusing that Hollywood is so staunchly in support of intellectual property rights, but is more than willing to enjoy the benefits of Linux.
Re:The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux reve (Score:3, Interesting)
Even worse for DEC/Compaq, they weren't really DEC Alphas, but Alpha clones. Was weird to see them rave about this "Titanic made using Alpha technology", when they didn't use DEC hardware or software, just use Alpha chips from someone else. They may have got a few bucks on Alpha licensing for those clone
Re:The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux reve (Score:2)
Well, that's perhaps because you have a simplistic view of what Linux, open source, and the free software movement stand for.
First of all, open source is simply an economic and practical movement: as a user, I want the source to applications I use and I want to be able to modify them. If the vendor doesn't give them to me, I just don't use their
Re:The real surprise: HP, $2 billion in Linux reve (Score:2)
Good question; I didn't have a sense of it post-merger, so let's check the 2002 annual report. Skimming that, company wide they had $72 billion in gross revenues, $56.6 billion in net revenues. Broken down, that was:
The PC division of the combined HP/Compaq had net revenues of $22 billion.
The HP Services revenue was $9.1 billion.
HP's Imaging and printing was $20.3 billion.
The Enterprise group (which is all the non-PC business I think: workstation+server+sto
Would the Real HP please step forward (Score:5, Insightful)
Before this, Dell was the RedHat "Daddy". That was probably before Michael Dell and Steve Ballmer had a couple of meetings and came to the agreement that Linux was bad for Dell in the "consumer space", which somehow included their laptops, and their website. Anyone remember the "powerapp" boxen. They were good, and came with RH 6.2 and 7.0 distros. That was before "Red the Hat", decided to really mess up their distro.
This latest announcement is a "Stock market Ad" designed to make both HP and RedHat look better than usual (warty beasts with scrabbling claws and pale lidless eyes which cannot withstand the brilliant light of full-disclosure) and to signal that server clients and channel partners can "Have RedHat, we mean Linux, with that".
And after RedHat's 8.x they can eat their distro one mylar shard at a time...I'll be nice and let them choose which end they want it in, because it's never going to see my servers again. Ever.
Re:Would the Real HP please step forward (Score:2)
What are you doing with 8.x on your servers? Red Hat 8.0 is meant for personal use-- there is very little bare-bones support for it. If you want a supportable enviornment for your server, then you need Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (a.k.a. Advanced Server).
HP also supported SUN (Score:2, Informative)
Very, very, very bad move for RedHat (Score:2, Interesting)
Apparently, complaints about support have skyrocketed 50% in ONE QUARTER!
Register story [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Very, very, very bad move for RedHat (Score:2)
[Me]
"My network card is broken. Please send me a new one"
[dot head]
"I am not being understanding what it is the issues are being having, have you tried to reinstalling Windows?"
[Me]
"I'm running Linux"
[dot head]
"Oh, I am being very sorry that we are not supporting Linux on the system you are having"
Its the same game IBM and Solaris are playing (Score:2, Interesting)
I think even SGI did this, roll out Linux along their own OS for servers. No complaints from us but, I wonder why dont they offer BSD as well, just for more diversity in their offerings? They shouldnt make much money from Linux as an OS, so they could do that.
This isn't really that new... (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, HP has been offering RedHat AS for their Itanium boxes for quite a while now, along with HP-UX and Windows 64-bit Enterprise Server (the price difference between HP-UX and Linux has always been negligable, but Windows adds substancially to the final system price). The only thing new here was the same Linux software and support is now being offered for the 32-bit Intel hardware.
Well it's no surprise (Score:2, Interesting)
The project thats working on it has been trying to get info from Red Hat concerning their High availability product but has been stonewalled rumor is that RH is afraid of the support commitment.
The only down side to us using linux is that I'm 99% sure that any developments that we make in house would not be given back to the Linux project. I only give them 1% credit because the
iPAQ (Score:2)
Nice feedback loop (Score:2)
Step 2: Get another vendor to do the Linux support for you [slashdot.org]
Step 3: Profit!
Using someone else's Linux makes sense... (Score:2)
HP Not So Great (Score:3, Interesting)
Did I mention that IBM brought a full rack of working blades with redhat, windows 2k, openbsd, freebsd, suse, and a few other linux distros, and showed off the awesome power? HP brought two broken blade servers and pointed at the Xeon's inside and said, "Intel! Intel!"
Not saying its bad to see Red Hat get exposure, but HP doesn't rate high in my book, and I know a lot of other people who feel the same way. This might give Red Hat a bad name.
If my HP sales rep is reading, this is why everytime you send me a new offer, I go right to my customers and say, "IBM! Pro Micro!"
Re:A hardware monopoly (Score:5, Interesting)
Or will it just be an obscure option burried in their website?
Re:A hardware monopoly (Score:5, Informative)
"The Red Hat operating systems covered by this agreement include Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, used in high-end servers for demanding tasks such as database and enterprise applications; Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES, used in smaller, departmental servers, such as mail, Web and print servers; and Red Hat Enterprise WS, used in workstations."
CompUSA will still just be selling HP home PCs bundled with WinXP home. This is for commercial accounts who want RedHat Linux with their HP servers or workstations and are prepared to pay for it.Re:A hardware monopoly (Score:2)
There is actually a good message here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only the support costs money (Score:2)
Re:Only the support costs money (Score:2, Insightful)
How are they providing barriers to entry? They provide all of the source to AS on there ftp site. In fact they provide it in SRPM fasion so you can recompile the entire distro if you like. Your complaining because they don't make available the Binary ISO? What requires them to do this? And why would they want to when it just costs them money?
Re:Only the support costs money (Score:2, Insightful)
However, if I look at RH from a financial standpoint, it would be in their economic interest to make sure that when someone
Re:Commodity linux would be news (Score:2)
Having large vendors like HP provide support for Linux helps credibility among PHB's - you know, the people who sign pay checks.
Re:Commodity linux would be news (Score:2)
Server side Linux isn't going away any time soon, and that's good, but it isn't news anymore. Linux is still invisible to end users, including home users and very small businesses.
End users, after all, is almost every
Re:Oh yeah and I forgot (Score:2)
Re:Great. (Score:2)
Is that why youre not watching CNN and on Slashdot? Hey news for nerds! Shit that matters!
I'll alt-tab to cnn.com in a while but wont expect material belonging there in slashdot. And then a company rolling out Linux against their own UNIX is news for nerds.
Re:Debian! (Score:3, Funny)
This must have been moderated by some gentoo douchebag (on his mom's PC) via a wget cronjob that checks slashdot every 20 min for pro gentoo comments.
Re:Debian! (Score:2)